Guardian Angel
by bekaz13
Summary: X5-494 hasn't had the easiest life, but a mysterious blue-eyed stranger has always been there to help when he needs it most, even when he doesn't know it. Warnings: Character death, but nothing too dramatic. Some spoilers for Dark Angel.


_So this is my first attempt at crossover fic, mostly because I couldn't sleep and the idea just kept prodding at me until I wrote it all down. So I did, and it was 4AM so I really don't know if it makes sense at all. Probably not._

_Dark Angel verse, takes place pre-series, 2x02 "Bag 'Em", 2x11 "The Berrisford Agenda", and future. Oh, and a cracky reference to 1x18 "Pollo Loco". Cookies if you spot it._

_Also character death, but nothing too dramatic._

_

* * *

_

X5-494 was not having the best day of his life. It had been weeks since that night—the night a whole squad of X5s snuck out of their barracks, a dozen of them managing to slip past the guards and away from Manticore forever—but Lydecker's fury at the loss of his "kids" was unprecedented, and the scientists were scrambling for results. In their desperation to prevent another jailbreak, they had taken to keeping the remaining X5s in Psy-Ops for days at a time, retesting and retraining them until they could barely remember their own designations.

494 had just returned from one of these extended stays, and, understandably, he was exhausted. He wasn't a typical nine-year-old by any means, but he was still only a child, and even with supercharged DNA he could only take so much. But as tired as he was, tucked away in his bunk, he couldn't sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he would be jerked awake, his small body shaking as the overworked neurons in his brain misfired again and again.

"Glitching," he'd heard the scientists call it. And glitching he was, seizing harder than he ever had before. One of the kinder nurses had seen it coming before he left the lab, but even the tryptophan she had slipped him didn't seem to help. He suppressed a groan, knowing that he couldn't draw attention to himself. If someone saw him like this…well, he didn't know what would happen, exactly. All he knew was that when a member of his squad was taken away, they never came back. But he was frustrated at his own weakness. He should be able to control it, to hide it, to lock his muscles tight and force the shuddering to cease. And he couldn't. Not this time. Not tonight.

Suddenly he heard footsteps in the corridor—the guard was making his rounds again. Not for the first time, 494 silently cursed the X5s who had escaped. This was all their fault. It was their fault he had spent the last three days enduring every test and training exercise the Psy-Ops techs could think of. It was their fault he was too exhausted to calm his seizing muscles. It was their fault that Lydecker had the guards patrolling non-stop through the night. And it was their fault that now he was going to be dragged out of bed in the middle of the night so that they could do who-knew-what to him.

The footsteps grew louder, each footfall like a gunshot in the silence of the barracks. He screwed up his eyes in a final, desperate attempt to stop the spasms wracking his body, but it didn't last. His energy was spent. He had no choice but to resign himself to whatever fate they had planned for him, and try to enjoy the few moments he had left in his bunk.

But even as he listened to the sounds of the guard moving closer to the door, he heard another sound. A gentle one, like the rustling of the birds he occasionally glimpsed through the barred window by his bed. He opened his eyes, and found himself looking up into a face he'd never seen before. He almost cried out, from shock more than anything, but something in the bright blue eyes above him made the sound die in his throat. He gazed up at them, body still jerking violently with every breath, and watched as the stranger reached out to place two fingers on his forehead. An odd feeling of peace washed over him, and he let his eyes drift shut. As his awareness slowly faded away, his tired brain registered a single word, soft and low:

"Sleep."

* * *

For weeks, 494 scoured the face of everyone he met at Manticore, determined to find the owner of the bright blue eyes that had haunted him since that night. Eventually, however, he had to accept that the stranger had disappeared, if they had ever existed at all.

Years passed, and in time the memory faded until it became little more than a notion, an image that his nine-year-old mind had conjured up to calm him down. It was a subconscious act of self-preservation, and nothing more. By the time he was 14, he had forgotten it completely.

Until one afternoon during a long and particularly unpleasant training exercise, when he suddenly found himself deep in the woods surrounding the facility with absolutely no idea where he was. Which was ridiculous; he'd practically grown up in these woods. But he was tired and cold and pretty sure that the rest of his squad were already back inside where it was warm and dry and _dammit_ he was miserable. Giving up for the moment, he sat down on the soggy ground, his back against a tree trunk, and tried to ignore the moisture that was already starting to seep into his clothes.

Sure enough, after a few moments he was fast asleep, lost in a dream where he was far away from Manticore. He was someplace better. Someplace good, where no one got yelled at, and no one got punished, and no one disappeared. And when you woke up in the morning, you could stay in bed as long as y—

SNAP!

494 woke in an instant and leapt to his feet, superhuman senses already on edge as he glanced around for the source of the noise. He turned a full circle, seeing no sign of a threat, and was just about to chalk it up to an overactive imagination when—

SNAP!

He spun around just in time to see something long and tan whip behind a tree. He moved toward it, still poised for a fight, when he spotted more movement, now a hundred feet away. He barely caught a glimpse of a tall figure before it disappeared once more. Muttering a curse under his breath, he broke into a run, wondering how anyone could have traveled so far so quickly. Even the fastest members of his squad couldn't blur that fast, and even then at least he would be able to see their movements.

After several minutes with no sign of his quarry, he stopped to get his bearings. Which was stupid, because the last time he'd checked he was completely and hopelessly—Wait. He knew exactly where he was now. How did that happen? As he looked around, unable to believe his luck, he thought he saw something flash in the growing darkness behind him. It only lasted a second before it was gone, and that night as he lay awake going over the whole bizarre experience in his mind, he was sure he had imagined it. But even if he had, there was something oddly familiar about that shade of blue.

* * *

Just like before, he quickly put the incident out of his mind, and once again several years passed before anything like it happened again. This time 494 was preparing for his most important mission yet—his first undercover assignment.

Years later, the details of this mission would blur together, coming in flashes of light and sound: pianos and pool lights and shaking hands and soft lips. And fire, so much fire he was almost blinded by it. But most of all he remembered two pairs of blue eyes. One was long-lashed, glittering, and a few shades too light. The other was dark and penetrating and somehow commanding, urging him to stop, to think, to run inside and warn her before it's too late but it all went wrong no it's too loud it's too bright I can't stop it I couldn't stop it let me go please no come back RACHEL!

For months he would wake up with her name on his lips. But before any sound escaped them, before he could even open his eyes, there was a gentle pressure on his forehead and the darkness washed over him once more.

* * *

Two more years passed. Manticore was destroyed and 494—or Alec, as he had recently been named—was free. As free as he could be, at least, considering everything he'd been through. But he put it out of his mind. The important thing now was to survive, to find a way to exist without Manticore. And he was managing pretty well, he thought. At least until those stupid X6 kids showed up and ruined his sweet deal.

But they were her problem now. He hoped they'd all have the sense to get the hell out of there before what was left of Manticore caught wind of them. And there was something creepy about that X7. Would his freaky sonar thing work at that range? He probably should have mentioned that to her; she'd been out of the game for a while. But it wasn't his problem anymore. He had a sweet ride, he had tunes, and he was gone, baby, gone.

So imagine his surprise when he saw that POS pickup headed back toward the barn, not an hour after he'd left it. They must have bailed soon after he did, and managed to get out of town while he was jacking the 'vette. So why were they going back?

After a few half-hearted attempts to inform them of their considerable stupidity, he turned his eyes back to the road just in time to round a bend and _see some jackass standing in the middle of the highway_.

Cursing up a storm, Alec slammed on the brakes, yanking the wheel sideways in an attempt to keep from flattening the poor bastard. As the 'vette's back wheels spun around and the car came to a stop, he practically leapt over the passenger seat to make sure the guy was okay. And then throttle him.

But when he looked up, the man had disappeared. For a few moments Alec stood there staring down the road like an idiot before turning back to the car. It had spun almost a full 180 degrees, and was now pointing back the way he'd come. And, incidentally, the way the pickup had been heading just a few minutes before. Alec groaned and rolled his eyes. He wasn't gonna get out of this one, was he?

As he started up the engine and headed off to clean up whatever mess the kids were leaving in their wake, he felt a sudden chill go down his spine. He didn't know how, or when, or if he'd just dreamt it, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he'd seen that stupid trench coat somewhere before.

* * *

He would never forgive her for this. Seriously, he loved her like a sister—an annoying, incredibly bossy sister—but this was unacceptable.

Alec had been living in Terminal City with the rest of the Manticore alumni for almost three years now. You'd think after that much time the Ordinaries would've warmed up to the idea of Transgenics by now, but there were enough people still scared that even now they couldn't risk leaving the city except at night, and then only the X-series had any chance of making it back in one piece. At least, they thought they did.

She had finally guilt-tripped Alec into leading a supply run. They were nearly out of medical supplies, and after last week's attack they were running dangerously low on ammo. Which was probably why, when a group of Ordinaries ambushed them just as they stepped through the sliding drug store doors, Alec only had one round to let off before he felt white-hot projectiles tear through his body.

The pain was overwhelming, and his vision instantly started fading around the edges as he stared into the triumphant face of the Ordinary who had brought him down at last.

"Thought you were safe, dincha?" he sneered. "Well think again, freak." He brandished a remarkably blurry, though still vaguely recognizable surveillance photo of Alec in front of his face. Then he barked a laugh and drifted out of Alec's rapidly narrowing field of vision.

Alec heard the faint sounds of the automatic doors sliding open, and then closed again as the Ordinaries left him and his companions in growing pools of scarlet on the floor. He grit his teeth, screwing up his eyes against the pain flooding through his body, determined not to cry out in case one of the others could hear him. He doubted that they could. The silence that pressed in on him from all sides told him that his friends were beyond hearing.

Then a familiar sound cut through the silence and the pain. A quiet rustling. Like bird wings. Alec opened his eyes, and found himself once again looking into the bluest eyes he'd ever seen. He stared, marveling at what he saw in them. It was like they were looking right into him, like for the first time someone was actually seeing him for himself, seeing who he was, _what_ he was, everything he'd done at Manticore, and everything he'd done since. But they never looked away, never wavered in the slightest. There was no judgment, no accusation. He saw no pity in them, either. Only understanding. Acceptance.

Forgiveness.

And for the first time since he was nine years old, Alec felt peaceful. He continued to gaze calmly up at the man kneeling over him, and lifted a hand to grasp the shoulder of the now familiar trench coat he wore.

"I remember you," Alec said, and he did, clearly, for the first time. "You've been here before."

It wasn't a question. The man nodded silently.

"But…Who are you?" he asked, then coughed and shuddered as the pain threatened to overwhelm him again.

But the man simply shook his head, a small smile playing at his lips.

Alec frowned, searching those brilliant blue eyes for an answer that wouldn't come, and watched as the man lifted a hand toward his face, two fingers outstretched.

And he heard, for the second and final time, a soft voice, low but gentle, say a single, beautiful word.

"Sleep."


End file.
